Hellbound (Undefeated runner, second place Victoria GNK)

TLDR: Extend the early game with Siphon/Vamp/Wanton; Crush the mid-game with Keyhole; Close out the late-game with Blackmail or Hades Shard

So I was worried about Data and Destiny, but then the thought occurred to me… why not steer hard into the tags? This started out as a centrals-only, blackmail recursion, Gabe deck.

Also I don’t like DLR. That’s why I didn’t add it. I understand that it’s a strong inclusion and that it just took Worlds. I don’t like it, I didn’t want to play it.

After lots of tweaking, it became a headlock Reina.

I took it to the Winter GNK in Victoria, BC, and went Runner undefeated. Pretty fun.

As with most denial decks, the key is to land an early Siphon. The resource combo is, as everyone knows, Fall Guy and Wireless Net Pavilion, with Paparazzi to protect if you expect Meat Damage. That means you don’t have to waste time clearing tags to protect Liberated or not blow up. And your Activist Support and Joshua B can keep you in the clicks and the bad publicity.

Honestly, it’s pretty straightforward. It just requires a little guesswork from you in the opening rounds. You’ve got to prioritize between Siphoning, building your Blackmail engine, or steering hard into Keyhole. I opt for the Blackmail engine against glaciers, but most other decks I just try and draw a ton of cards while pressuring with Siphon, Vamp, and Wanton.

If you get your Blackmail engine going and drop a Joshua B, you are crushing. Five clicks every turn with a million tags.

Activist Support lands the bad publicity and it protects against a single All Seeing I. And it’ll recharge the bad pub for you at the start of your next turn. I think it’s more resilient than just going Valencia. Also the Reina tax and standard deck size really help out in the early turns. (Plus with Siphon and Vamp, you turn that Reina tax back on in the mid-game and late game.)

Weaknesses. Code Gates. Whoops. So as it turns out, a Quandary or an Enigma will keep me out of a remote. If this happens to you, your only hope is to Keyhole. Use Hades Shard or a Vamp to 0 to get into Archives for the win.

Changes? Yeah, I’d probably find a way to put in a Yog. D4v1d deals with Turing in a remote. But a Turing in a central would take three clicks without a Yog.

I came up against

-Mind Mapping, Keyhole and Wanton Destruction to game point, Vamped into remote to win

-Haarpsichord Kill, Siphon and Vamp recursion with a sprinkle of Keyhole

-Near-Earth Hub, Siphon and Vamp and a lot of lucky single accesses

-Titan, Keyholed away Scorches and Punitives. Scored one Atlas and one Hostile, then Blackmail into a remote, expecting an Atlas, found a Government Takeover